Comments on: Criticism: is it ever really constructive?

By: Lana Bogan

Lana Bogan — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:41:14 +0000

Nava. The quote you selected was perfect. Also encouragement and consultation will, in my mind, eradicate criticism. Critique might be okay to use as a form of review and appraise; something a teacher might need to do. I never minded appraisal of a completed assignment. But coupled with encouragement always took any sting out of the word. I have been looking for a particular reading from Abdu’l-Baha about too much praise; that we must be careful of praising someone too much. I won’t take the time here to explain my understanding, but it’s a wonderful teaching, and makes so much sense. If anyone knows where I can find this, let me know.

By: Ilda

Ilda — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:55:08 +0000

This is a timely piece and quite fitting that I came across it today, because I had a training session where our trainer said that ‘constructive criticism’ does not exist. The word criticism has a negative connotation to it, making the other person receiving it feel inferior and not very good about themselves. She suggested we not label it constructive criticism rather feedback give with positive language to encourage the person to improve.

By: Marcel Marien

Marcel Marien — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:42:46 +0000

Hello nava,

Thank you very much. This comes to me as a very inspiring posting – and it gave me much food for thought.

You write: “am referring specifically to criticism among peers, friends, and loved ones” and it seems to me that in this context seeing the one positive quality amongst 9 shortcomings is so much more “constructive” than paying attention to the short-comings that it rightfully deserves all our attention, especially since it can be quite challenging and pointing out faults often just ammounts to a cheap way of elevating oneself above the other.

Then you excempt (for good reason, I think) releationships like “parents-children, teacher-students, courts of law, spiritual assemblies” which require one side to guide the other.

However, there is another context in which – to my present understanding – the approach of having a “sin-covering eye” is quite wrong. It is a case in which overlooking a “shortcoming” would not be a challenge but the cheap way out and would be due mainly to a lack of courage and engagement. A few quotes come readily to my mind which point into that direction (there are many others).

“Bind ye the broken with the hands of justice, and crush the oppressor who flourisheth with the rod of the commandments of your Lord, the Ordainer, the All-Wise.”
(Baha’u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 52)

“…(be a) haven for the distressed, an upholder and defender of the victim of oppression…”
(Baha’u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 93)

“If ye stay not the hand of the oppressor, if ye fail to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden, what right have ye then to vaunt yourselves among men? What is it of which ye can rightly boast?”
(Baha’u'llah, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 191)

The foundation of the Kingdom of God is laid upon justice, fairness, mercy, sympathy and kindness to every soul. Then strive ye with heart and soul to practice love and kindness to the world of humanity at large, except to those souls who are selfish and insincere. It is not advisable to show kindness to a person who is a tyrant, a traitor or a thief because kindness encourages him to become worse and does not awaken him. The more kindness you show to a liar the more he is apt to lie, for he thinks that you know not, while you do know, but extreme kindness keeps you from revealing your knowledge.
(Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i World Faith – Abdu’l-Baha Section, p. 412)

Now, what do we do when we live in times (like ours) in which lies, deceit and (self)-deception have become so embedded in the very fabric of society, that they are as omni-present as the very air we breath? Wouln’t it be helpful to have somebody actually pointing out to us things that go awry instead of having to figure them out all by ourselves – every one individually? Wouldn’t it be required of us to call a lie and to call deceit what we are seeing to be lies and deceit?

It seems to me that the first challenge is to become aware of what is actually going on – and this in itself is already a huge one. The 2nd challenge is to position oneself to what we have become aware of. The sin-covering eye is not a blind eye, it is an eye that sees and chooses to cover something less important for the sake of bringing to the fore something more important. The 3rd challenge then is to deal kindly with each other. Being kind seems pretty meaningless if it is done for the price of being unaware.

Then there is another aspect: When pointing out something with one outstretched finger, 3 fingers are pointing back at us, and thus calling something lie, deceit and self-deception is always a tall order for ourselves… it might be tempting to be terminally nice instead.

By: Siisi

Siisi — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:46:42 +0000

I liked this very much it given me a fresh perspective on how to handle some issues i’m having in my own personal life. Thank u

By: nava

nava — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 08:19:54 +0000

Thank you so much to everyone for all of the warm and encouraging feedback. Kian I love your postulation and hope that it becomes a reality– if our roles are to support and encourage one another then it makes sense that criticism would be replaced by encouragement and consultation and you suggest. The consultation element is also key, and we know that consultation is earnest and frank, but doesn’t have to be ‘critical’ per se.

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:40:33 +0000

I absolutely love this article! And I also agree with Kian’s quote at the bottom that the term “constructive criticism” could be phased out and replaced with encouragement and consultation. I think the word “criticism” itself has negative connotations.

Thanks to all of you for spreading your light so that others may benefit!

By: Kian

Kian — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:06:07 +0000

Hmm very interesting post. However i wonder just how definable “constructive critism” really is. Our views on how constructive constructive crit is are largly formed by our experiences receiving it. I recently graduated from an art/design course at uni where we where encourged to develop relationships with each other within which we can both give and receive crit. What developed was much the same approach as the mother you mentioned; praise and look at where we are at, followed up with looking at where we can go, how it can be improved.

It seems to me that this approach could be more correctly called encouragment, which brings up another question, what is encouragement?

What i find of particular interest is; considering how are social interactions will change as successive generations learn to employ the tool of consultation more widely into our lives, and, additionally how the transformative effect of consultation impacts our interactions outside of consultation.

Can anyone else see the idea of constructive critism disappearing to be replaced by encouragement and consultation

By: Nadine

Nadine — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:25:55 +0000

I am impressed. Never viewed it from that perspective. Will also include it in my blog (with credits ). Thanks for sharing.

By: shima

shima — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 12:08:18 +0000

thank you very much!! i really liked this post. it makes me really think and reflect.

By: nava

nava — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:54:48 +0000

Liz, thank you for asking; you are absolutely free to post this on your blog as long as you credit Bahai Perspectives. Thank you so much for the warm feedback Liz, Raha and Hediyih.